Green Tea improves immediate memory too

The good effects of green tea on physical health has been documented long since, now new research is saying that the potion also has good effect on immediate working memory too. Previous studies have suggested that green tea has good effects on cognitive functions too. The new findings may make researchers, doctors looks to this healthy option to treat patients of dementia and short term memory problems.

The latest study which involved the researcher teams of Prof. Christoph Beglinger from the University Hospital of Basel and Prof. Stefan Borgwardt from the Psychiatric University Clinics, revealed that green tea extract increases the brain’s effective connectivity, which is the causal influence that one brain area exerts over another.

Researchers explained that this improvement in connectivity led to better actual cognitive performance. Researchers explained that participants given green tea extract performed significantly better in working memory tasks compared to when they were administered a placebo.

For the study, researchers had healthy male volunteers drink a soft drink that contained several grams of green tea extract before they solved working memory tasks.

Researchers then had the men undergo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and analyzed how the beverage affected participants’ brain activity. The study revealed that drinking green tea extract enhanced connectivity between the parietal and the frontal cortex of the brain. Researchers said the latest findings suggest that drinking green tea may boost performance in cognitive tasks.

“Our findings suggest that green tea might increase the short-term synaptic plasticity of the brain,” Borgwardt said in a news release.